Preserving ancient wisdom

Wednesday

Jun 11, 2014 at 5:52 PMJun 12, 2014 at 1:19 PM

By Chris BergeronDaily News Staff

CAMBRIDGE - Thanks to cutting-edge technology, the history of Tibet's spiritual and philosophic wisdom has been preserved in a vast digital library for all time.The Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center of Cambridge has scanned and downloaded 9.3 million pages of religious, philosophic and literary texts, representing 1,300 years of Tibet's written heritage into a digitalized library now available to scholars, libraries and institutions around the world.Using technology to fulfill its mission to "keep wisdom alive,'' the TBRC has compiled an online library representing the "largest repository of Tibetan texts in the world,'' said Jeff Wallman, executive director and director of technology."We're riding the wave of technology,'' said the former philosophy student who spent years traveling in India, Asia and the U.S. before designing the Center's complex database. "Our mission is to preserve and share the intellectual history of Tibet.''From a cozy warren of offices above Harvard Square, the 15-year-old nonprofit scans between 500,000 and 1 million pages of rare Tibetan texts each year to add to its digital archive.Wallman said thousands of traditional Tibetan looseleaf books, known as "pecha,'' are digitalized in the office on a specialized scanner.Now, you can even wear digitalized Tibetan texts around your neck in a stylish pendant.The TBRC is presently selling Treasure Pendants, designed by Buddhist artist Ken Nakamura, that contain a micro SD card that stores Tibetan texts selected by staffers.Depending on the number of scanned texts, Treasure Pendants, which come in several designs, cost from $77 to $155 and are available at the center's website, www.tbrc.org. Each Treasure Pendant comes with an adapter to allow viewing on personal computers.However, there's one significant obstacle for the average person who wants to learn about one of the world's most exotic civilizations: The texts are written in Tibetan, a language mostly read by Tibetans and serious scholars.Yet the library has been enormously popular.Wallman said every year about 120,000 individuals and institutions download text from the library.Since ancient Tibetan texts are fragile and stored in remote monasteries, Wallman said the TBRC's work will have a "long-term impact.''"Since few people can read these texts, their preservation and translation will go on for generations. We're preserving Tibetan wisdom for posterity,'' he said.Wallman said the TBRC was founded in 1999 by E. Gene Smith, a scholar of Tibetan literature and history, who personally collected and often copied 12,000 volumes of Tibetan texts while living in India and Asia.Smith personally selected Wallman to take over as director in 2009, before his death a year later.Some might wonder why bother to archive esoteric texts containing everything from thousands of poems by the 11th century poet and yogi Milarepa to the thoughts of the Dalai Lama."We're preserving a jewel of humanity for all time,'' said Greg Beier, the director of sustainability who gave up a career in finance to pursue his personal study of Buddhism. "The impact of what we're doing will go on for a very long time.''For many Westerners, Tibet's distant history and current political status remains a slippery mix of cultural stereotypes and misunderstanding.Located in a plateau northeast of the Himalayas, present-day Tibet was once an independent kingdom known as Bod with its own language and religious culture. After the introduction of Buddhism in the 7th century, Tibet developed a distinctive religious culture and accompanying literature.Over time, neighboring China exerted increasing control over Tibet with the newly established communist Peoples Republic of China invading it in 1950 and incorporating it as a province named Xizang, or the Tibetan Autonomous Region.Despite its modest size, Beier said the TBRC has been playing a huge role by preserving and disseminating the Tibetan canon around the world."We're a really unique addition to Greater Boston. People are coming from all over the world to use our resources,'' he said.After more than 20 years in finance, Beier joined the center in 2012 after an encounter with Smith in a Nepalese monastery."Even though I can't read Tibetan, I appreciate the wisdom it carries,'' he said.Smith was visiting Kathmandu to present a copy of "Digital Dhama,'' a film about his work, to a monastery.After seeing Smith and watching the movie, Beier had "an epiphany'' that inspired him to study Buddhism and eventually embrace it as a personal faith."Back then, my life was heading in one direction. That encounter led to a 90-degree turn,'' Beier recalled. "I was blown away that an American could do something as important and special as preserving the written history of Tibetan culture. It's an epic story. And there's so much more to do.''Chris Bergeron is a Daily News staff writer. Contact him at cbergeron@wickedlocal.com or 508-626-4448. Follow us on Twitter @WickedLocalArts and on Facebook.